AN ALGORITHM TO GENERATE DISCRETE PROBABILITY-DISTRIBUTIONS - BINOMIAL, HYPERGEOMETRIC, NEGATIVE BINOMIAL, INVERSE HYPERGEOMETRIC, AND POISSON

A recursion procedure for generating point probability values, cumulative probability values, and interval probability values of discrete distributions is described. Algorithms and associated FORTRAN functions for five representative discrete probability distributions are presented: binomial, hypergeometric, negative binomial, inverse hypergeometric, and Poisson. The joint use of recursion and a small arbitrary initial value ensures computational efficiency.